The one thing movies get wrong about battles before gunpowder is that people did not just get hit once and decorously "go to sleep", they kept fighting until they fell fainting from their wounds at which point their opponent kept hitting them until they were no longer moving. I have heard that on average skeletons recovered from ancient and medieval battlefield graves usually show 10-15 "fresh" wounds at time of death.
It blows my mind when I think to this era in time. Awful nutrition, disease and very short lives. I think I won't complain when I am stuck in a line of traffic tomorrow.
Its true, u can actually see the medieval or ancient battle ways in modern time with the hacking of gangs. In my country, ethnic indian are mostly gang member and they will Hack their opponent death and after they went down they continue hacking till the limbs came Off. The only difference were medieval warrior was with chainmail and modern gang were wearing just ordinary shirts. 😂 im from malaysia.
@@tbrowniscool Even with ww3 looming, we live in the most peaceful era in human history. Ruthless invasions, like Ukraine happened multiple times each decade back then.
@@gio-oz8gf Or they might have won! Truth is, after nearly twenty generations, every Englishman will be descended from thousands of Towton combatants, both Yorkist and Lancastrian.
Bear in mind not all of these men were fully armoured. I recall seeing a demonstration of two Medieval re-enactors showing how you might slash at a man's legs, bring him down and then pretty much cut, bludgeon and slash him to death. It was very savage even in re-creation and the crowd were distinctly disturbed by what they saw.
Armour was for those with the money. Most medieval "armour " was made in the same way cricket leg pads are made. Ruth Goodman is a historian and she showed how it was made, omg it took ages! 😱👍
I watched a US Medal of Honor interview with a soldier who copped a German machine gun round through the face (the bullets were essentially a bit bigger than a .303 rifle round) as he tried to get onto Omaha beach. He kept going and got shot twice more from memory and actually kept fighting after being patched up. How I do not know. No doubt there were medieval fighters who did similar things.
Henry V, for one. As a teenaged prince Hal at the battle of Shrewsbury, he took an arrow in the face and carried on fighting. Some special tongs were invented to draw it out. No doubt his soldiers on the Agincourt campaign were aware that he was a total badass, blessed by God or even just lucky. That can’t have hurt morale.
Adrenaline is a POWERFUL chemical, likely paired with the brain telling the entire body "okay, this is FIGHT OR DIE time, so I'm giving direct orders to everyone to not hold back on your output. Use it or lose it!" The body is essentially a machine that is built for keeping the brain alive, and also reproducing itself if it can get the opportunity, and the brain takes its survival very seriously. There are documented cases of soldiers from all across the eras receiving lethal wounds, that *will* kill them, but they kept going and fighting for sometimes even minutes before finally they ran out of blood to keep the brain oxygenated, etc.
I just watched this documentary for the second time. It really brings this battle to life. These were real people that went through this horrific deal. It sucks because most of the documents and records of everything from that time either doesn't exist because of the constant wars, or was destroyed by the other side at some point.
The last skeleton they show here, aka Towton 16, has haunted me for years....Caroline Wilkinson and Richard Neave did a facial reconstruction from his skull; that face is probably one of the most dramatic/powerful images I have ever seen in my whole life
The Towton bodies in general have the same effect on me. I'm a journalist and for some years covered homicides in the largest city in Texas, hundreds of murders. But the Towton dead have an especially powerful impact on me. I cannot explain it.
@@thomasbell7033 I wonder the same thing. I heard a story about one of the men on The Titanic (his name escapes me right now) who while the ship was sinking, saw his wife up to the lifeboats before returning to his room to dress up in a tuxedo. It's said that he did that because he wanted to meet his maker well-dressed. Similarly, I wonder if it's that a lot of these people who met their fate at Towton knew what lay in store, but faced it regardless with cold resolve.
@@thomasbell7033 I think it is because the conditions they were born into transformed them into beings so much removed from our mentality, yet they are humans just like us; this notion perhaps coerces us into wondering how we would have felt and behaved under similar conditions
@@KoolAidGuy541 You are referring to tycoon John Jacob Astor. I imagine he considered it an act of noblesse oblige. As for the horror of Towton (and for me, Gottland as well), I'm pretty sure it's the evidence the bodies present to us so vividly. Evidence that war in those days was such an intimate affair. You had to look a man in the eye as you poleaxed him over and over. It is unimaginable to us in 2023, and yet there before our own eyes is the proof that this is exactly how it was.
I can remember my dad sitting on a memorial bench to the Sherwood Foresters (his old regiment) at Crich in Derbyshire in 2007. He was 86 years old and I think he knew he was dying because he had never talked much about the war before. He told me quite a bit about his experiences in WW2. One incident he recalled when he was 21 in North Africa manning a Bren gun during the surrender of a party of about 10 German soldiers. As the British officer went forwards to take the surrender one of the Germans dropped his hands. He opened fire and dropped the lot. He said he could still see one of them who was only a young blonde haired lad. He had blown the top of his head clean off. The officer walked up to him and put his hand o his shoulder and said "Never mind". My dad said he felt like shooting him as well as he was so upset. It never left him after all those years. In mitigation I would add that the regiment had previous incidents where German would fain surrender then open up again - which was why he was probably a bit trigger happy. He did 4 assault landings during the war. All his mates were killed. He was with the regiment when it captured Tiger 131 (the most famous tank in the world) which is at Bovington tank museum in Dorset.
@@jwadaow He was saying that shit happens in wars and he shouldn't let it prey on his mind. The soldier had panicked when someone made a wrong move, that's all. He needed to pull himself together so he could carry on fighting.
I've visited Towton battlefield several times. I'll be in the area next week and I'll visit again. I had ancestors in that battle and in the battle of Bosworth Field as well. I've been interested in this war since I was old enough to know what it was. I have such respect for these men.
I had ancestors on the other side. Come on, we'll have a little ruck hahaha. Just kidding mate, we're so similar its crazy we were at war for all that time.
As someone whose ancestors were traced back to fighting in the Battle of Towton, this video was both fascinating and deeply personal for me. It's incredible to see how the actions of those who came before us can shape the course of history, and to learn about the sacrifices and struggles that our forebears endured. Thank you for shedding light on this important moment in our shared history, and for giving me a greater appreciation of my own family's legacy.
Far more brutal than many movies make out. My guess is because they never really show an aftermath like this real life scenario. Good work to share this
Humans can be both easy and hard to kill multiple hits would be required ,it is not like in the movies one hit one kill all the time . Take into account being scared out of your mind taking on an enemy and not stopping till they stop moving and breathing. Some of the finishing would could be delivered after that battle either a mercy kill or just making sure those bodies are dead.
One slash can kill you if you know what your doing and where you are hitting and a sword can cut through armor if not war would be useless back then because no one would die
@@andrewcook2247 No, a sword cannot cut through armor or armor would have been useless. It was the whole point of armor. They didn't run around with 35+ lbs of steel strapped to their bodies for looks. Most of the killing blows came when the person was knocked down.
This documentary is similar to one describing the 14th C. Battle of Visby on Gotland Island. About 1,800 militia against a couple thousand mercenaries. It was a massacre, the townsmen in Visby refused to open the gate, trapping the farmers. Several mass graves were uncovered, and the wounds were just as vicious and brutal. As at Towton, there was no quarter and no prisoners. Many of the remains showed multiple leg injuries. Seems the mercenaries would slash at the legs, and when the poor soul fell, it was just butchery.
Imagine the smell and sound of masses of men and horses bleeding, yelling and dying all within 6ft of you. The smell of one of these battlefields must have been very unique.
Would love if you zoomed in on the other bones so we could see the markings on those also, the skull was really interesting, but would have liked to see the others too. Other than that really interesting piece you've made!!
I think the horrific reality of these medieval battles was clearly a grotesque toe to toe hacking. Definitely not the slick choreography of , say, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart which featured fanciful ducking and spinning.
When you think about all the battles in history it is amazing how so many common men put their lives in extreme danger for the benefit of one man or group of men and how they were manipulated into risking their lives with little benefit to themselves. If common men actually thought this through before risking their lives there would be a lot less war and suffering.
Dare say forced, the Lord of the Manor rounding folk up to fight,most rented on the landlords land ,so if you didn't you may be homeless ,beaten,life stock taken etc etc,
Thank you for a very informative video. The demonstration of weapons and their us, following up with the forensics really made this so real. Again, I say thank you!
I don't think we can even imagine how brutal battle was before the use of firearms (still extremely brutal). Its not the case where you aim down a sight, pull a trigger, and they drop. You are face to face with another man. It's a far more personal way of killing somebody. I am convinced that many warriors of the medevil period and earlier would have had some form of PTSD following the battles they fought in. The level of violence, the threat to your life, and the brutal way you could meet your demise is truly shocking. I feel a quote from Harry Patch, the last serving british soldier from the treches of WW1, summed it up best. He said, "War is organised murder and nothing else"
I didn't get taught very much about English history in school either unfortunately. It's a shame because the town I grew up in was significant throughout a lot of our history which I'm only just learning about now
Great video thank you. Just how many mass graves have been found at Towton, and what is your best estimate, on how many men were actually killed in that battle? Thank you again.
Even doing the re enactment for this and getting hit by a blunt blade hurts I can't imagine how much pain the soldiers had to fight through. The adrenaline rush I've experienced numbs it to a certain point but even then that's not enough most times
Bro.. driving a poleaxe through someone’s head while they are down and wounded has to be the most savage thing ever. Like Iknew medieval warfare was brutal but seeing the specific ways that some of these people died puts it in a whole new perspective
One thing I'd like to offer about the weapons that were presented here, and the gentleman demonstrating with them. I am absolutely sure, given his movements, that he's fought with them before (as I have), so I am confident that he knew he wasn't even close to showing how those weapons moved in actual combat. The hammer, for example, he demonstrated with "snaps" -- short, fast jabs -- that allude to how they were used, and likely saw some usage in setting up an opponent for the more aggressive attacks. But those weapons would have been coming at you so fast, with terrifying power. The skeletons attest to the fact that those weapons were capable of delivering a killing blow, often through armor. Just something for people who might not be familiar with medieval melee weapons to be aware of: what you see in this video only hints at what the men at Towton saw up close and very, very personal.
And lots of people think as well that massive battles when troops squared off you were fighting the guy in front of you. When in fact you were more than likely fighting the 3 guys in front of you. Say you take a swing at the guy in front of you the guy to his left or right snaps out at your arm and in turn someone swings out at his arm. All the while a guy with a pole axe behind you is thrusting between you to try to stab one one of the men opposite him. It’s complete chaos fighting on a line.
Pretty sure “running away” is a respectable option. I do not want to meet anyone wielding these weapons. Always ask the question, “Would I want to meet my twin in this fight?”
They're just happily talking about besides a Skeletton, whilst the Defibrillator hangs on the Wall right besides.... DAMN, HOOK THAT THING UP AND LET THE FELLA TELL HIS STORY HIMSELF! 😎
More Matthew Lewis, please. His enthusiasm and passion are infectious, but he doesn't do all the over-the-top 'drama' junk. He looks great but doesn't look like an actor. He is accessible. More Matt, please. And, I am not his cousin...
From modern entertainment (stage plays, novels, movies, etc.) we think of sword/axe/mace injuries as one and done. In reality, they would hit until their enemy ceased to be a threat. A person can receive horrific, even fatal injuries and still continue to fight for a time. So it's not so much Hit and Move On, but more like hit, hit, hit, hit ... maybe whack another fellow who's lying on the ground, etc. While it's a different culture, many Kenjutsu kata I've been shown (still armored armed men) involves multiple strikes as a matter of habit, just assuming you'll need multiple hits. Great video and I think it's important to look back on these things with modern tools and modern sensibilities to see what life was really like.
Can u imagine the PTSD the veterans of these wars suffered. Of couree, no one knew that then. The only " help " they got was the admonition to " pull yourself together, man."
On the 'FutureLearn' course on the Wars of the Roses, it was stated that these individuals were killed whilst fleeing, perhaps having discarded helmets and weapons in their haste to escape. This may explain the injuries seemingly to unprotected limbs and skull. Bone injuries are only evident, one wonders what soft-tissue trauma these soldiers may have endured that perhaps hampered their escape.
This reminds me of the battle of the gilded spurs in Belgium. Flemish craftsmen and farmers beating the french cavalry and chasing them after battle for a long time, killing all they could find as they were so pissed off at them. I sadly don't recall the distance but they ran a long time after that battle but it was keep running or get killed, no hostiges.
War is hell, no matter the time period. Back then it was bludgeoning and cutting, now it’s shooting and explosions. Mental illness in modern soldiers after seeing and doing what they did is horrible. I can’t imagine what those men in medieval times felt with hand to hand combat.
Is the reason they have not found any mass graves at Towson (apart from the being discussed at present) the same as at the Waterloo battlefield carried out by the local peasantry?
@@derekstocker6661 - USUALLY cos they were dug up to use the bones for many things including fertiliser and even bulking out flower in bread Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive, or be he dead I'll grind his bones to make my bread thats what this is about - robbing the bodies of the battlefields
@@derekstocker6661 Soil conditions can remove all traces of bone relatively quickly. If the body is buried without any other artifacts to find then they simply vanish.
Incredible to think that 28000 were killed in this battle in a single day from a population of around 2 million. In proportion to the current population of the UK that would be around 940,000. Devastating.
so that last guy may have been at St Albans or Wakefield -- probably Wakefield. And given survival at Wakefield and death at Towton -- one would guess he was a Lancastrian.
Well, and I'm sure many realize, this is just the evidence of one battle. So it stands to reason that all medieval battles were like this. Violent, gory, and painful.
I just don't understand, especially for the ones who survived previously, why someone would agree to do this. Either A. Refuse, which maybe they'd kill you for but it would be better than the high probability you'd die worse ways in battle or B. Agree but while the battle happens, just book it lol.
A bullet is probably going to kill me almost instantly. But having to fight hand to hand with another person and watching them or yourself pleading not to die is quite unpleasant...
Well, "routing and running" worked pretty well for William the Conquorer's men at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, one might even go as far as to say that was what resulted in their victory... Maybe Gen. Robert E. Lee wasn't a great fan of reading up on military history, and if I'm not mistaken, he got his ass kicked severely at Gettysburg, so maybe he isn't really a strategic genius we should be taking a whole lot of lessons from, but what do I know...
Those with loads of injuries were probably put down by one guy who goes straight after the next guy he wants to attack an the guys following behind him finish the guy off. If you spent time dealing with a guy after he's on the ground you would become a easy target for any opposing troops near you.
We didn't find out how old dude got his head smashed down over his spine, but my hypothesis is that 1. he went down to his knees and was smashed from above, or 2. he was prone and someone took a golf swing at his head; in either case perhaps with the "blunt" side of the war hammer, which seems more likely per the other injury but less likely based upon the force/area needed to do that. Perhaps it was a maul wielded by a comrade who came in with the death blow after his buddy caught the poor fellow with the war hammer.
@@mikev4621 The reason that was recorded is because it was a rare occurrence. If it happened all the time it wouldn't have been written down. There was very little cavalry used during the War of the Roses. The battle of Towton was fought in a snowstorm, all the cavalry dismounted and fought on foot. No one there could have been crushed by a horse.
Hollywood makes Medieval combat look like "one blow, and you're dead," while in reality it was one or more onto one man, hacking, hewing and bludgeoning their victim until they died of their wounds, before moving on to the next opponent. The weapons are incredibly brutal just to look at, hard to wield for long periods, and horrifying to think about being used against you. Most foot soldiers preferred spiked warhammers/maces to use in close combat, and spears/halberds for when the lines of infantry approached each other. Knights weren't the wonderful, chivalrous heroes we're taught about in history class, as they were just as violent and brutal as the foot soldiers, but they got to ride into battle on horse back. It was illegal for a common soldier to kill a knight's horse, while a knight was trying to skewer him on a lance or hack him to death from his vantage point in the saddle. I was a re-enacter for years, and the weapons we used were blunt, but still we suffered injuries such as broken arms/ribs and cuts and bruises, so what real, sharp weaponry could do was pretty unthinkable.
Just absolutely disgusting with how brutal this kind of fighting was your face to face with another man slashing him across the face and killing wow just wild to me
It escalates into frenzy and blood lust. Then all that matters is kill or be killed and die taking as many out as possible so your mates can survive. Even today its the same cameraderie of preservation in modern armies.
I would consider the Halberd the Swiss army knife of medieval weapons, but that's just personal bias, the crow's beak he shows was part of every Knights weaponry after 1400.
I'm not sure if there were skeletons found to match those skulls, but if a blow to the bonce was fatal I'd say they were probably one of the luckier ones
Conspicuous by its absence is reference to the stupid idea of ‘serving’ a monarch by fighting to win him the ‘crown’ of England, then to return to serfdom and subsistence farming. At least the monarch’s went into battle too, unlike modern political ideologues all too willing to start wars but never to lead the troops into battle!
something to think about, if we all lived past lives and we just keep cycling, we're born we live our lives then die and when we die our souls are shipped right into the body of a new born or a baby being born, hindu belief is we keep being reborn until we do what we were sent here to do in the first place, i say this because before i even knew what it was, i could describe draw and name the instrument cluster in the cockpit of a p-38 lightning, i was 5? the first time i did it and had no idea what it was until the first time i saw the inside of one at an air show when i was 13
This really does revolutionise our understanding of the battle, who'd have thought that the men killed actually died violent deaths involving medieval weapons?
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If you missed it, Part One where we take a look at how the Battle of Towton played out is here: ruclips.net/video/_6rbgeyg3eg/видео.html ⚔
I love History Hit!
Thank you, thank you. Awesome stuff.
They may well have been there!
MWW = 333
MEN, not just "people" died here. If the dead were all women, you can bet they'd be saying "how these WOMEN died".
The one thing movies get wrong about battles before gunpowder is that people did not just get hit once and decorously "go to sleep", they kept fighting until they fell fainting from their wounds at which point their opponent kept hitting them until they were no longer moving. I have heard that on average skeletons recovered from ancient and medieval battlefield graves usually show 10-15 "fresh" wounds at time of death.
It blows my mind when I think to this era in time. Awful nutrition, disease and very short lives. I think I won't complain when I am stuck in a line of traffic tomorrow.
Its true, u can actually see the medieval or ancient battle ways in modern time with the hacking of gangs. In my country, ethnic indian are mostly gang member and they will
Hack their opponent death and after they went down they continue hacking till the limbs came
Off. The only difference were medieval warrior was with chainmail and modern gang were wearing just ordinary shirts. 😂 im from malaysia.
@@tbrowniscool
Even with ww3 looming, we live in the most peaceful era in human history.
Ruthless invasions, like Ukraine happened multiple times each decade back then.
@@Ranstone 100% agree, I've been listening to Napoleon the great. Holy crap that Era was brutal.
@Stjepan Burger can you provide a source for that info please mate?
I'm glad my ancestors had the good sense to be somewhere else that day.
You don't know that they were somewhere else; they could have been there after they had passed on their genes.
@@gio-oz8gf Or they might have won! Truth is, after nearly twenty generations, every Englishman will be descended from thousands of Towton combatants, both Yorkist and Lancastrian.
560 years ago.
20 generations plus.
You'd be related to half the English population back then.
The guy with the old wounds and still fighting with new head wounds until he's hit thrice with a mace, bugger me I wish I'm related to that fucker 👈😑
Nice german Kittler cat... 👍
Bear in mind not all of these men were fully armoured. I recall seeing a demonstration of two Medieval re-enactors showing how you might slash at a man's legs, bring him down and then pretty much cut, bludgeon and slash him to death. It was very savage even in re-creation and the crowd were distinctly disturbed by what they saw.
I heard it was a real fun time..
Damn right buddy. Hit him until he falls over and then hit him until he stops moving. NOT pretty.
Armour was for those with the money. Most medieval "armour " was made in the same way cricket leg pads are made. Ruth Goodman is a historian and she showed how it was made, omg it took ages! 😱👍
@@mama_b_7525
Surcoat: the heaviest quilting project ever.
I saw actual film of a US marine shoot off a dead Japanese soilder's mouth just in case, nothings fucking changed you know 👈😑
These bones can only tell one side of the story the trauma to the flesh with all the blood must have been a terrible sight in itself
I watched a US Medal of Honor interview with a soldier who copped a German machine gun round through the face (the bullets were essentially a bit bigger than a .303 rifle round) as he tried to get onto Omaha beach. He kept going and got shot twice more from memory and actually kept fighting after being patched up. How I do not know. No doubt there were medieval fighters who did similar things.
Henry V, for one. As a teenaged prince Hal at the battle of Shrewsbury, he took an arrow in the face and carried on fighting. Some special tongs were invented to draw it out. No doubt his soldiers on the Agincourt campaign were aware that he was a total badass, blessed by God or even just lucky. That can’t have hurt morale.
Adrenaline is a POWERFUL chemical, likely paired with the brain telling the entire body "okay, this is FIGHT OR DIE time, so I'm giving direct orders to everyone to not hold back on your output. Use it or lose it!" The body is essentially a machine that is built for keeping the brain alive, and also reproducing itself if it can get the opportunity, and the brain takes its survival very seriously.
There are documented cases of soldiers from all across the eras receiving lethal wounds, that *will* kill them, but they kept going and fighting for sometimes even minutes before finally they ran out of blood to keep the brain oxygenated, etc.
Adrenalin is an amazing drug.
@@johnholden-white2045 murderers and war mongers serve satan, not God.
@@seanbrown9048 Agreed. That may not always be their intention… but, I agree that destroying God’s creation is no way to serve him!
I just watched this documentary for the second time. It really brings this battle to life. These were real people that went through this horrific deal. It sucks because most of the documents and records of everything from that time either doesn't exist because of the constant wars, or was destroyed by the other side at some point.
These guys fought far beyond hardcore. They were savage battlers.
One of them took a blow to the skull and lived to fight another day. Unreal.
The last skeleton they show here, aka Towton 16, has haunted me for years....Caroline Wilkinson and Richard Neave did a facial reconstruction from his skull; that face is probably one of the most dramatic/powerful images I have ever seen in my whole life
The Towton bodies in general have the same effect on me. I'm a journalist and for some years covered homicides in the largest city in Texas, hundreds of murders. But the Towton dead have an especially powerful impact on me. I cannot explain it.
@@thomasbell7033
I wonder the same thing. I heard a story about one of the men on The Titanic (his name escapes me right now) who while the ship was sinking, saw his wife up to the lifeboats before returning to his room to dress up in a tuxedo. It's said that he did that because he wanted to meet his maker well-dressed.
Similarly, I wonder if it's that a lot of these people who met their fate at Towton knew what lay in store, but faced it regardless with cold resolve.
@@thomasbell7033 I think it is because the conditions they were born into transformed them into beings so much removed from our mentality, yet they are humans just like us; this notion perhaps coerces us into wondering how we would have felt and behaved under similar conditions
@@KoolAidGuy541 You are referring to tycoon John Jacob Astor. I imagine he considered it an act of noblesse oblige.
As for the horror of Towton (and for me, Gottland as well), I'm pretty sure it's the evidence the bodies present to us so vividly. Evidence that war in those days was such an intimate affair. You had to look a man in the eye as you poleaxed him over and over. It is unimaginable to us in 2023, and yet there before our own eyes is the proof that this is exactly how it was.
@@cengizeren366 Yes, I believe you said it more succinctly than I did.
I can remember my dad sitting on a memorial bench to the Sherwood Foresters (his old regiment) at Crich in Derbyshire in 2007. He was 86 years old and I think he knew he was dying because he had never talked much about the war before. He told me quite a bit about his experiences in WW2. One incident he recalled when he was 21 in North Africa manning a Bren gun during the surrender of a party of about 10 German soldiers. As the British officer went forwards to take the surrender one of the Germans dropped his hands. He opened fire and dropped the lot. He said he could still see one of them who was only a young blonde haired lad. He had blown the top of his head clean off.
The officer walked up to him and put his hand o his shoulder and said "Never mind". My dad said he felt like shooting him as well as he was so upset. It never left him after all those years.
In mitigation I would add that the regiment had previous incidents where German would fain surrender then open up again - which was why he was probably a bit trigger happy.
He did 4 assault landings during the war. All his mates were killed. He was with the regiment when it captured Tiger 131 (the most famous tank in the world) which is at Bovington tank museum in Dorset.
I know you hung on his every word. I prob would have blasted the coward and learned a valuable lesson about “honor”
Never mind? What does he mean never mind?
@@jwadaow He was saying that shit happens in wars and he shouldn't let it prey on his mind. The soldier had panicked when someone made a wrong move, that's all. He needed to pull himself together so he could carry on fighting.
😅
I've visited Towton battlefield several times. I'll be in the area next week and I'll visit again. I had ancestors in that battle and in the battle of Bosworth Field as well. I've been interested in this war since I was old enough to know what it was. I have such respect for these men.
I had ancestors on the other side. Come on, we'll have a little ruck hahaha. Just kidding mate, we're so similar its crazy we were at war for all that time.
@@mcspiffington 😄👍
As someone whose ancestors were traced back to fighting in the Battle of Towton, this video was both fascinating and deeply personal for me. It's incredible to see how the actions of those who came before us can shape the course of history, and to learn about the sacrifices and struggles that our forebears endured. Thank you for shedding light on this important moment in our shared history, and for giving me a greater appreciation of my own family's legacy.
Fantastic film. Pity it wasn't Matt Easton presenting the weaponry though.
Far more brutal than many movies make out. My guess is because they never really show an aftermath like this real life scenario. Good work to share this
Humans can be both easy and hard to kill multiple hits would be required ,it is not like in the movies one hit one kill all the time . Take into account being scared out of your mind taking on an enemy and not stopping till they stop moving and breathing. Some of the finishing would could be delivered after that battle either a mercy kill or just making sure those bodies are dead.
The intensity of the battle must have been fantastic.
Correct. And that's still true today.
"Worst Jobs in History" said mercy killing after the battle was the archers job.
One slash can kill you if you know what your doing and where you are hitting and a sword can cut through armor if not war would be useless back then because no one would die
@@andrewcook2247 No, a sword cannot cut through armor or armor would have been useless. It was the whole point of armor. They didn't run around with 35+ lbs of steel strapped to their bodies for looks. Most of the killing blows came when the person was knocked down.
This documentary is similar to one describing the 14th C. Battle of Visby on Gotland Island. About 1,800 militia against a couple thousand mercenaries. It was a massacre, the townsmen in Visby refused to open the gate, trapping the farmers.
Several mass graves were uncovered, and the wounds were just as vicious and brutal. As at Towton, there was no quarter and no prisoners. Many of the remains showed multiple leg injuries.
Seems the mercenaries would slash at the legs, and when the poor soul fell, it was just butchery.
Imagine the smell and sound of masses of men and horses bleeding, yelling and dying all within 6ft of you. The smell of one of these battlefields must have been very unique.
And shitting
Would love if you zoomed in on the other bones so we could see the markings on those also, the skull was really interesting, but would have liked to see the others too. Other than that really interesting piece you've made!!
Getting hacked to death is right up there with getting eaten by a bear or big cat on my “worst ways to die” list
I'd still rather that than get mustard gassed or burned alive like WW1.
Wow! A learning experience for me. Fascinating.
These men were tough, they worked the land without the help of tractors and agricultural machines, very hard men
They had agricultural machines that were fuelled by grain.
I think the horrific reality of these medieval battles was clearly a grotesque toe to toe hacking. Definitely not the slick choreography of , say, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart which featured fanciful ducking and spinning.
When you think about all the battles in history it is amazing how so many common men put their lives in extreme danger for the benefit of one man or group of men and how they were manipulated into risking their lives with little benefit to themselves. If common men actually thought this through before risking their lives there would be a lot less war and suffering.
You just described putins war...
Dare say forced, the Lord of the Manor rounding folk up to fight,most rented on the landlords land ,so if you didn't you may be homeless ,beaten,life stock taken etc etc,
As Greig said, you either fight or you lose your livelihood and home. Nothing is free in life.
@@krashd What good is livelihood and home if you’re dead? Still makes no sense to me.
Thank you for a very informative video. The demonstration of weapons and their us, following up with the forensics really made this so real. Again, I say thank you!
I don't think we can even imagine how brutal battle was before the use of firearms (still extremely brutal).
Its not the case where you aim down a sight, pull a trigger, and they drop. You are face to face with another man. It's a far more personal way of killing somebody.
I am convinced that many warriors of the medevil period and earlier would have had some form of PTSD following the battles they fought in.
The level of violence, the threat to your life, and the brutal way you could meet your demise is truly shocking.
I feel a quote from Harry Patch, the last serving british soldier from the treches of WW1, summed it up best. He said, "War is organised murder and nothing else"
I can't believe I've never heard of this battle. This is what should be taught in schools.
Absolutely. There's little military and dynastic history in the curriculum now, even though they've shaped the destiny of the country we see today.
The largest death count in any english battle. Supposedly 28,000 in one day
I didn't get taught very much about English history in school either unfortunately. It's a shame because the town I grew up in was significant throughout a lot of our history which I'm only just learning about now
I didn’t worry about what I was or wasn’t taught in school. I’ve pursued my interest in history all my life since first becoming aware of it at age 9.
But nonsense.
Great video thank you. Just how many mass graves have been found at Towton, and what is your best estimate, on how many men were actually killed in that battle? Thank you again.
Would have been nice to have had close ups of the skeleton injuries, really!
Even doing the re enactment for this and getting hit by a blunt blade hurts I can't imagine how much pain the soldiers had to fight through. The adrenaline rush I've experienced numbs it to a certain point but even then that's not enough most times
They may have had opiates for pain.
@Jackie Kittridge-Steele Very likely but then again knights and Lords would have afforded that
Bro.. driving a poleaxe through someone’s head while they are down and wounded has to be the most savage thing ever. Like Iknew medieval warfare was brutal but seeing the specific ways that some of these people died puts it in a whole new perspective
One thing I'd like to offer about the weapons that were presented here, and the gentleman demonstrating with them. I am absolutely sure, given his movements, that he's fought with them before (as I have), so I am confident that he knew he wasn't even close to showing how those weapons moved in actual combat. The hammer, for example, he demonstrated with "snaps" -- short, fast jabs -- that allude to how they were used, and likely saw some usage in setting up an opponent for the more aggressive attacks. But those weapons would have been coming at you so fast, with terrifying power. The skeletons attest to the fact that those weapons were capable of delivering a killing blow, often through armor. Just something for people who might not be familiar with medieval melee weapons to be aware of: what you see in this video only hints at what the men at Towton saw up close and very, very personal.
And lots of people think as well that massive battles when troops squared off you were fighting the guy in front of you. When in fact you were more than likely fighting the 3 guys in front of you. Say you take a swing at the guy in front of you the guy to his left or right snaps out at your arm and in turn someone swings out at his arm. All the while a guy with a pole axe behind you is thrusting between you to try to stab one one of the men opposite him. It’s complete chaos fighting on a line.
lol no shit
Pretty sure “running away” is a respectable option. I do not want to meet anyone wielding these weapons. Always ask the question, “Would I want to meet my twin in this fight?”
@@kevinonorato7223 running away is respectable if it's 5 on 1, but in a medieval battle yeah no.
Is this a joke? You're trolling right?
You can get badly injured in a pub brawl. Walk away, if you ever reach that situation
Honestly this was a fantastic watch and super interesting. Amazing work! Thanks for taking us along.
This kind of combat was the most personal type of battle. Beating and stabbing your opponent into a bloody mess.
They're just happily talking about besides a Skeletton, whilst the Defibrillator hangs on the Wall right besides....
DAMN, HOOK THAT THING UP AND LET THE FELLA TELL HIS STORY HIMSELF! 😎
The bravery of these men , regardless of the cause is a lesson to us all 🙏🏼
For what? To slaughter each other in the name of a view feudalistic, power-hungry bums?
A lesson in stupidity and futility and servility, that men have always obeyed the satanic call of war, and butchered their fellow men.
War is hell. No matter what time you live in. Respect to all brave warriors
More Matthew Lewis, please. His enthusiasm and passion are infectious, but he doesn't do all the over-the-top 'drama' junk. He looks great but doesn't look like an actor. He is accessible. More Matt, please. And, I am not his cousin...
7:19 Poor bastard.
Thank you for another entertaining video!!
Awesome video!
I am torn between the horror, and the honor, of the men that held their convictions so dear.
You might say those medieval soldiers took some pretty hard 'History Hits.'
Great video as always. Thank you.
From modern entertainment (stage plays, novels, movies, etc.) we think of sword/axe/mace injuries as one and done. In reality, they would hit until their enemy ceased to be a threat. A person can receive horrific, even fatal injuries and still continue to fight for a time. So it's not so much Hit and Move On, but more like hit, hit, hit, hit ... maybe whack another fellow who's lying on the ground, etc. While it's a different culture, many Kenjutsu kata I've been shown (still armored armed men) involves multiple strikes as a matter of habit, just assuming you'll need multiple hits.
Great video and I think it's important to look back on these things with modern tools and modern sensibilities to see what life was really like.
interesting..great stuff. Thanks!
5:50 Wow. What a million ways, to ' go '. That guy, could have fallen, headlong, from a horse onto the ground, too.
This amazing, so interesting, those men fought a brutal battle.😳
c'est passionnant!
Where did you get that cool jacket?
Can u imagine the PTSD the veterans of these wars suffered. Of couree, no one knew that then. The only " help " they got was the admonition to " pull yourself together, man."
On the 'FutureLearn' course on the Wars of the Roses, it was stated that these individuals were killed whilst fleeing, perhaps having discarded helmets and weapons in their haste to escape. This may explain the injuries seemingly to unprotected limbs and skull.
Bone injuries are only evident, one wonders what soft-tissue trauma these soldiers may have endured that perhaps hampered their escape.
This reminds me of the battle of the gilded spurs in Belgium. Flemish craftsmen and farmers beating the french cavalry and chasing them after battle for a long time, killing all they could find as they were so pissed off at them. I sadly don't recall the distance but they ran a long time after that battle but it was keep running or get killed, no hostiges.
War is hell, no matter the time period. Back then it was bludgeoning and cutting, now it’s shooting and explosions. Mental illness in modern soldiers after seeing and doing what they did is horrible. I can’t imagine what those men in medieval times felt with hand to hand combat.
There must’ve been some pretty cool weapons up for grabs that day…
Is the reason they have not found any mass graves at Towson (apart from the being discussed at present) the same as at the Waterloo battlefield carried out by the local peasantry?
Hastings is a mystery as well, why so few remnants.
@@derekstocker6661 - USUALLY cos they were dug up to use the bones for many things including fertiliser and even bulking out flower in bread
Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll grind his bones to make my bread
thats what this is about - robbing the bodies of the battlefields
@@derekstocker6661 Soil conditions can remove all traces of bone relatively quickly. If the body is buried without any other artifacts to find then they simply vanish.
I believe the bodies were dug up and bones ground down to make a powder that was used to purify sugar
Pyres. Gets rid of Pests and Pestilence........ Mmmm sounds like an advert for Home Cremation Kits.
Very interesting.
imadine returning from battle with holes on the skull and head and surviving.
Incredible to think that 28000 were killed in this battle in a single day from a population of around 2 million. In proportion to the current population of the UK that would be around 940,000. Devastating.
Awesome what their bones tell us..brutal,but braves..no doubt..!Great.
Don't Give Up, Skeleton
Holy Fuck.. those are some Tough People.
so that last guy may have been at St Albans or Wakefield -- probably Wakefield. And given survival at Wakefield and death at Towton -- one would guess he was a Lancastrian.
Well, and I'm sure many realize, this is just the evidence of one battle. So it stands to reason that all medieval battles were like this. Violent, gory, and painful.
“The brutal injuries” it’s like no s***, it’s war.
I just don't understand, especially for the ones who survived previously, why someone would agree to do this. Either A. Refuse, which maybe they'd kill you for but it would be better than the high probability you'd die worse ways in battle or B. Agree but while the battle happens, just book it lol.
War never changes
I would rather get shot than go through that brutal shit
Not sure why I’m here, but I am. I enjoyed it, I’ll admit.
A bullet is probably going to kill me almost instantly. But having to fight hand to hand with another person and watching them or yourself pleading not to die is quite unpleasant...
Humans are such Monsters ............
As Gen. Robert E. Lee said, “never let the enemy see you run”. When they panicked and routed that was it.
Well, "routing and running" worked pretty well for William the Conquorer's men at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, one might even go as far as to say that was what resulted in their victory... Maybe Gen. Robert E. Lee wasn't a great fan of reading up on military history, and if I'm not mistaken, he got his ass kicked severely at Gettysburg, so maybe he isn't really a strategic genius we should be taking a whole lot of lessons from, but what do I know...
@@mace8873 you can go eat a dick my friend
And the modern soldiers cry about ptsd imagine the ptsd from the past warriors...legit besting and cutting a man to death yo close seeing them die
And they all died for a good cause, can you imagine what would have happened if the other side won?
I hit myself with a mace each morning to remind myself why i quit drinking.
You should say Part 2 of 2
Those with loads of injuries were probably put down by one guy who goes straight after the next guy he wants to attack an the guys following behind him finish the guy off. If you spent time dealing with a guy after he's on the ground you would become a easy target for any opposing troops near you.
They all died for a man that didn't care that they would die or live all he wanted was what he thought was rightfully his.
@me5768...you just accurately described the magasheep cult & their pathetic false orange Idol...
@@jeffanon1772 Not even close Trumpy never started a war he ended one but Biden is letting others fight his war for him and trying to start more .
@@me5768 what war did don the con end????
We didn't find out how old dude got his head smashed down over his spine, but my hypothesis is that 1. he went down to his knees and was smashed from above, or 2. he was prone and someone took a golf swing at his head; in either case perhaps with the "blunt" side of the war hammer, which seems more likely per the other injury but less likely based upon the force/area needed to do that. Perhaps it was a maul wielded by a comrade who came in with the death blow after his buddy caught the poor fellow with the war hammer.
He may have been kicked i the head by a galloping horse, while lying on the ground.
horse might have rolled onto him
@@mikev4621 The English very rarely fought from horseback, their preferred method was to fight on foot.
@@robo5013 Richard the 3rd called for a horse : )
@@mikev4621 The reason that was recorded is because it was a rare occurrence. If it happened all the time it wouldn't have been written down. There was very little cavalry used during the War of the Roses. The battle of Towton was fought in a snowstorm, all the cavalry dismounted and fought on foot. No one there could have been crushed by a horse.
Hollywood makes Medieval combat look like "one blow, and you're dead," while in reality it was one or more onto one man, hacking, hewing and bludgeoning their victim until they died of their wounds, before moving on to the next opponent. The weapons are incredibly brutal just to look at, hard to wield for long periods, and horrifying to think about being used against you. Most foot soldiers preferred spiked warhammers/maces to use in close combat, and spears/halberds for when the lines of infantry approached each other. Knights weren't the wonderful, chivalrous heroes we're taught about in history class, as they were just as violent and brutal as the foot soldiers, but they got to ride into battle on horse back. It was illegal for a common soldier to kill a knight's horse, while a knight was trying to skewer him on a lance or hack him to death from his vantage point in the saddle. I was a re-enacter for years, and the weapons we used were blunt, but still we suffered injuries such as broken arms/ribs and cuts and bruises, so what real, sharp weaponry could do was pretty unthinkable.
@MrCrystalwarrior: I am pretty certain that the Swiss mercenaries and other professional long pike specialists DID target horses on a regular basis.
Very, very interesting and well presented. Whites of the eyes and toe to toe medieval hit them until they drop, and stay dropped.
It's interesting that the ones who have old injuries seemed to have died from a very similar injury.
7:15 Bro just refused to die
In a battle, you keep hitting your enemy until you finish him as a threat
Would be interesting to be able to put a face to these people
Can't they all mushed up 😂
credit all experts, Tom has his own youtube channel *blessed be the lord*.
Where does the warhammer go? That's right, the square hole!
Just absolutely disgusting with how brutal this kind of fighting was your face to face with another man slashing him across the face and killing wow just wild to me
It escalates into frenzy and blood lust. Then all that matters is kill or be killed and die taking as many out as possible so your mates can survive. Even today its the same cameraderie of preservation in modern armies.
I would consider the Halberd the Swiss army knife of medieval weapons, but that's just personal bias, the crow's beak he shows was part of every Knights weaponry after 1400.
Some of those wounds look painful enough that Ibuprofen won't help.
Strong lads in those days!!!!!
War. War never changes
I'm not sure if there were skeletons found to match those skulls, but if a blow to the bonce was fatal I'd say they were probably one of the luckier ones
We should bring back punishment for crime
Conspicuous by its absence is reference to the stupid idea of ‘serving’ a monarch by fighting to win him the ‘crown’ of England, then to return to serfdom and subsistence farming. At least the monarch’s went into battle too, unlike modern political ideologues all too willing to start wars but never to lead the troops into battle!
Would it have hurt to show close-ups?
something to think about, if we all lived past lives and we just keep cycling, we're born we live our lives then die and when we die our souls are shipped right into the body of a new born or a baby being born, hindu belief is we keep being reborn until we do what we were sent here to do in the first place, i say this because before i even knew what it was, i could describe draw and name the instrument cluster in the cockpit of a p-38 lightning, i was 5? the first time i did it and had no idea what it was until the first time i saw the inside of one at an air show when i was 13
01:26 nothing like carrying on a conversation with a human skull cradled in your hands😨
Alas, poor Yorik. I knew him well.
Killing the injured on the ground .once the arrows incapacitated the soldiers or through shear exhaustion allowing a head strike or finishing blow .
28,000 men lost must have been a huge loss to families, the economy, and a growing nation for years to come. Tragic.
It’s no suprise the brutality of war ..humans can be vicious creatures
This really does revolutionise our understanding of the battle, who'd have thought that the men killed actually died violent deaths involving medieval weapons?